Forget India Gate and Humayun’s Tomb. Delhi now has new sights to see—from cutting-edge architecture to cool art galleries, restaurants and bars

There’s a buzz about Delhi at the moment. Over the last year, the city has acquired freshly painted road signs, shiny metro stations and extra street lights; even the old tombs by the roadside are beautifully lit now, sparkling like diyas in the dark. “London seems so much dimmer,” remarked a bemused friend who had flown into the capital last year when the recession in Europe was at its gloomy peak.

The funding of the 2010 Commonwealth Games may have been controversial, but it provided the extension of the Delhi Metro (which now covers a large part of the city and the suburbs of Noida and Gurgaon), new flyovers and a brand new airport. All of this has given Delhi the sheen of a slick, world-class city. And to bookend this year of change, the year in which New Delhi turns a hundred, India’s first Formula 1 Grand Prix comes to Noida.

But a slick world-class city has to have more than just mean streets and public transport. It has to have good food, shopping, culture and street life, and great hotels. Delhi has always had high culture—Dastkar craft fairs each winter, the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra’s Ram Leela during Diwali, Ravi Shankar in Nehru Park, Pina Bausch at Siri Fort Auditorium—but it’s never matched Mumbai (surely to talk of Delhi as a world-class city is to compare it to Maximum City) in the glamour stakes.

Delhi’s charge instead has traditionally come from its history, culture and power. The city’s admirers talk of the great imperial monuments—Tughluqabad, Purana Qila, Red Fort, Jama Masjid—and the beauty of Lutyens’ Delhi, with its wide boulevards and elegant bungalows. “I still get a thrill driving past Raj Path,” says hotelier Jaisal Singh, whose great-great-grandfather Shobha Singh was the chief contractor for Lutyens’ New Delhi, the construction of which began in 1911. Delhiites also claim that theirs is the city that has India’s best, brightest and most eclectic social scene. “Only Delhi can give you salon conversation,” says brand guru Suhel Seth, who moved from Mumbai to the capital more than a decade ago. Jaisal, who is one of the city’s most high-powered hosts and has recently co-authored a book on Ranthambore’s tigers with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, agrees. “At a dinner, I can invite a writer, a politician, an artist or a diplomat. In Mumbai, it’s just corporate types or people from the entertainment industry.”

But Delhi’s traditional allure is now getting a facelift. Not only has the city’s infrastructure been improved upon, it has also begun to acquire other vital ingredients. In the last few years, two new openings took the musty hotel scene in the city up by a few notches. The Aman is sophisticated and discreet, and its spa has become my favourite in New Delhi—it has a bathroom for each treatment room, a marble hammam and excellent therapists. The Trident in Gurgaon is a palace amidst the steel and glass of the suburb and has become the go-to for anyone in the area.

Read the full story in the October 2011 – November 2011 issue of Condé Nast Traveller. Now on stands.